Crawl

Most people stop crawling when they learn to walk. walking is faster. Parents brag on their kids who get up and walk at early ages. The term crawl tends to have negative implications, slow, inefficient, leading impatient impulsive frustrating behaviors, when in actuality, crawling is an important step in development. The predictable sequential patterns in which infants progress from womb behaviors to functional adult patterns has many small steps that affect brain function, co-ordination, even the ability to read. It follows after any event or disease that impacts a person’s ability to function physically a rehab program that at least visits steps such as eye tracking, rolling over, stretching in hands and knees, exploring quadruped weight shifting, finding balance in the kneeling position practicing getting up and down from floor or at least the bed, would be a good idea.

Chronic back pain will frequently respond well to crawling and other quadruped activities. Muscle imbalance helps perpetuate pain. Working muscles in an alternate gravitational plain allows and encourages a change in the diagonal pulls of the muscles, encourages lymphatic drainage away from the front side of the back bone, allows abdominal contents to shift positions in the pelvic cavity, stimulates neurological processing, and encourages proper reciprocal integration of movements between the shoulder girdle and the pelvis.

There are studies that suggest school aged children with reading and concentration difficulties would benefit by game play that included hands and knees mat work. Crawling helps develop co-ordination because it calls for diagonally oriented muscles to kick in and to get pelvic girdles and shoulder girdles to separate themselves from the expansive capabilities of the ribs while maintaining a separate movement path that leads to the base of the spine and eye control

Several yoga poses travel through these same plains, the rewards of Pilates regimens is that the short postural muscles of the torso get to work in a tight reciprocal pattern, and several therapy programs encourage weight bearing in alternate positions. For many persons even taking a short time to lie on their bellies in preparation for crawling is just what the doctor ordered.. Massage or bodywork are not usually done in a quadruped position but can be profoundly effective in re-balancing a person’s center of gravity. So go on, get four on the floor…

Get in touch with your inner pre-toddler and re-learn how to crawl in a way that improves your walk